


To Find the Perfect Pub....

by delighted



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 21:13:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8176262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delighted/pseuds/delighted
Summary: Post S7E2. (*slight spoilers*)The boys have a bit of a pub crawl.Absolute silly, sweet, London fluff.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn’t let the boys leave London without a pub crawl......
> 
> * Special Note: I'm going to have to ask for a suspension of disbelief, in regards to the drinking that is about to happen. Yes, they wouldn't have, because of the whole "half-a-liver" thing. But, I needed this to happen, so.....

“Alright, Sir Daniel, let’s go find us a pub.”

“She didn’t actually knight us, you putz,” Danny sighed, as he took off after Steve, who had some kind of freakish spring in his step... which went rather well with the intent and sparkly gaze in his eye, Danny would admit, though he’d also admit it terrified him a little. “You are going to be impossible now, aren’t you?” Danny yelled after Steve, adding under his breath to himself: “Not that you were exactly possible before.....”

“C’mon, Danny, we’re going to have a fantastic time!”

“Why can’t we just go to the place I told you about?”

“You know why, Danny. Besides... we’ve got all of London at our feet, and you want to go somewhere you’ve already been? Open up! Take a deep breath, let’s be explorers, let’s find a London pub and call it ours. You want some new memories? Let’s go make some.”

Danny was torn between rolling his eyes and laughing. “What the hell got into you, huh?”

“London, Danny! History, excitement, romance—and lots of really great pubs. So.... Pick one.” Steve turned to Danny, grabbed him by the shoulders, and spun him around. “Which way?” Steve whispered in his ear, and the shiver that went through him was only partly because Steve’s breath tickled.

Shaking his head and laughing softly, Danny gave in. “Oh, okay... how about that way?” And he pointed off down the street.

“Fabulous choice, my man!” Steve exclaimed, and wrapping an arm around Danny’s shoulders, he led them off in search of a most excellent pub.

It wasn’t long before they found one that looked, Danny had to admit, promising. Steve grinned that freakish, overly happy grin that Danny was powerless to resist, and they walked inside.

They strode up to the bar, Steve looking around him a little too obviously, Danny felt.

“Look at this, Danny,” Steve said, too loudly. “Dark green walls, rustic wood beams, pastoral paintings... pretty nice, eh?”

Danny smacked Steve to shush him, nodded towards the bartender who was smirking at them, and glared at Steve. Steve grinned, turned to the man and said:

“I’ll have a pint of your best Bitter, sir, and my buddy here will have....?” He looked at Danny.

“Half a pint of cider, please,” Danny said softly.  He tugged on Steve’s arm. “Would you chill the heck out, please?”

Steve grinned. “Just soaking up the atmosphere, Danno! Ohh, look at this menu, huh? Fisherman’s pie, that sounds good! I bet they do a fantastic fish and chips.”

Danny paid for their drinks and shooed Steve towards a table in the back where maybe his Loud Obnoxious American behavior would be a little less embarrassing. Once they were seated, Steve held his glass up. “To London, Danny. To London.”

“What the hell is the matter with you, you goof?” Danny muttered, but clinked glasses with Steve’s and took a sip. It was probably the nicest cider he’d ever had, he had to admit that. Steve seemed entranced with his pint (when the heck had Steve even learned what Bitter was?), and Danny took a look around the pub. It was really a wonderful example of your classic English pub, he thought. The green was not quite that typical pub green, so it kept it from seeming trite. The tables were worn, not artfully, as you so often got back home, but honest-to-goodness worn from decades, probably centuries, of use by guys just like them—off the street, in for a pint. Danny loved that sense of being part of history.

Steve was smiling at him, but he seemed to have mellowed, so Danny smiled back.

“So, buddy, what do you think? Is this it?”

Danny took a sip of his cider, which was stronger than he’d remembered. “I dunno, Steve. Maybe we keep looking?”

“Sure thing, buddy. Whatever you like.” And he stretched his arm around Danny, sitting back, pulling Danny with him, and they enjoyed their drinks in a rather relaxing, companionable silence.

When they’d finished their drinks, Danny had a spring in his step to match Steve’s and they headed off down the street in search of another pub.

It wasn’t long before they found one, but a quick peek inside had Danny shaking his head. “Too modern,” he explained to Steve, who nodded as though that made perfect sense, and they kept going.

The next pub was “too full,” which Steve accepted willingly, and the one after that was “too empty,” which made Steve roll his eyes. The two after that both rated trial half pints, but left Danny feeling they were not quite right.

Next they were drawn by a pub with a nautical theme. Well, Steve was. Very drawn. Danny thought it must be the drink speaking, because Steve’s enthusiasm level rose higher than Danny thought he’d ever seen it. The man behind the bar looked very much the salty old sea dog himself, and Steve wound up trading tales of the high seas for a bit with him, while Danny sat in amused silence and made it through a whole pint of cider and a packet of prawn cocktail crisps (“These are really good, huh, Danny? How come we don’t have these back home? We should get some and take them back to the team!”).  When Steve finished his second pint, Danny ushered him out the door.

“What? I liked that place!”

“Yes, dear, a little too much,” Danny said, patting him on the back, and steering him down the street in search of another pub.

The next pub they found was Irish, and Danny tried to insist that it needed to be specifically _English_ , but Steve was still feeling gregarious from his chat with his new Navy buddy (“He was Royal Navy, Danny! Actual Royal Navy....”), and insisted they should at least “stop in for a pint,” as though somehow the pub keepers would be offended if they passed by without saying “hi.” Taking a deep breath, and preparing himself for dealing with an inebriated Steve, Danny acquiesced.

It was actually quite nice. There was live music, which Steve really enjoyed, and Danny gave in and switched to beer, because they had Beamish, and Danny had a rule about never not having Beamish when it was on offer. They wound up sharing a basket of chips with liberal amounts of malt vinegar ("Why don't we eat them like this at home, Danny? This is fantastic!"), because, frankly, they’d been drinking a bit by this point.

Walking out into the evening air after that, arms around each other, Steve singing snatches of Irish tunes, Danny found himself feeling wistful. They used to go out drinking, him and Steve. It'd been a while, too long a while, Danny felt. They still went out with the team, quite a bit, actually. But they'd stopped going out just the two of them, and that was something Danny really regretted. So, if he pulled Steve in a little closer as they walked, well, he'd have said that was why.

It also might have been why Danny kind of waved off the next pub with a shrug, and keeping Steve close, kept them walking through the magical lights of London. Steve didn’t seem to mind, but then after the next one Danny shrugged off, he stopped.

“Danny.”

“Yeah, babe?”

“Maybe the fault isn’t in the pub, Danny.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means we’ve been to, what, fifteen pubs?”

“Eight.”

“Okay, eight pubs, Danny, and they’ve all been perfectly charming, yet you’re not happy with any of them, because they don’t live up to some expectation of the ideal pub.”

“You’re saying it’s me, not the pub?”

“I’m saying—what am I saying? I’m saying find _your_ pub, Danny. Find what _you_ want, now, here.”

And, suddenly, Danny knew exactly what he did want, and he pulled Steve around the corner, out of the glare of the street light, and pulled him close, and kissed him. At first Steve sputtered a little, but then he gasped and yanked Danny roughly against him, responding with far more enthusiasm than Danny would have anticipated. When they reluctantly parted, panting a little, Steve was smirking impossibly hugely.

“Well, that’s better than any of the pubs we found so far,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Danny replied, pressing his lips together, already missing the feel of Steve’s on them.

“We really do need to eat, though,” Steve said through his smirk, which Danny thought was kind of impressive.

“Yeah,” Danny admitted, though food was seriously the last thing on his mind right now, thank you.

Then Steve started to laugh.

“What?” Danny asked, looking at Steve suspiciously.

“Danny. Look where we are.”

Steve was looking over Danny’s shoulder, so Danny turned around and looked. They were right back where they’d started, at the very first pub they’d gone to.

Danny closed his eyes and chuckled. “Well, I think that’s a sign. Shall we?”

Steve pulled Danny in for a kiss, this one softer, sweeter, but utterly filled with promises. “I think it’s perfect.”


End file.
